The latest
Trump wants to look like the man in control.
He says Netanyahu will have “no choice” but to accept a U.S.-brokered deal with Iran. He also insists: “I call the shots.”
The Iran crisis is testing that claim.
More than 100 days after the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran began on Feb. 28, Trump is stuck in a Middle East fight that keeps resisting his command. The war he once described as “a little excursion” has entered its fourth month. He is trying to restrain Netanyahu from widening the conflict while pressing Iran to accept concessions it still rejects.
Details
• The New York Times said Trump won a tactical pause on Monday, after Israel and Iran both said they would halt their first direct strikes on each other since April.
• But the core deadlock remains: Iran is resisting U.S. demands on its nuclear program, and the Strait of Hormuz remains Tehran’s central pressure point.
• Aaron David Miller, a former State Department official now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Trump launched “a war of choice,” overestimated U.S. military power and underestimated Iran.
• Brad Bowman, a former U.S. Army officer and senior expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, warned that a weak deal could lock in a bad outcome if Iran’s leadership remains “angry and still armed,” with new leverage over Hormuz.
• Bowman said the war has shown the unmatched reach of the U.S. military, but also the limits of American firepower.
• At home, Trump faces a rising political cost. A longer war could keep fuel prices high and deepen Republican anxiety ahead of the midterms.
• The Washington Post said Trump has unusual leverage over Netanyahu because his grip on the Republican Party leaves the Israeli prime minister with few places to turn in Washington.
• Trump told Israel’s Channel 12 that he warned Netanyahu against returning to strikes on Iran, telling him: “You better be careful with what you are doing, because you might end up alone against Iran.”
• According to the Post, that warning marked a break from the long U.S. pattern of backing Israel against Iran under almost any circumstance.
• Miller said Trump has a degree of political leverage over an Israeli prime minister that is “unprecedented” in the history of the U.S.-Israel relationship, partly because he controls the Republican Party.
• But Miller’s deeper point is the harder one for Trump: he has changed Israel’s calculus, but has not yet shown he can change Tehran’s.
• Netanyahu is also under pressure at home. His rivals accuse him of turning Israel into a client state of Washington.
• Naftali Bennett said Netanyahu had “lost control of Israeli sovereignty.” Yair Lapid said Israel under Netanyahu had become “a total vassal state” of the United States.
• Sima Shine, a former head of analysis at Mossad, said recent reports point to a real and growing distrust between Trump and his advisers on one side, and Netanyahu on the other.
• Shine said some around Trump worry that Netanyahu can influence him and change his mind. She also said Netanyahu does not want a deal with Iran.
• In the background, Iran is probing the breach. Ted Singer, a former head of Middle East operations at the CIA, said Tehran is trying to test the seam between Trump and Netanyahu, strengthen its position with Hezbollah and remind Gulf states that the Houthis are still in play.
• The Wall Street Journal said Iran’s missile salvos against Israel point to more aggressive regional ambitions: showing it can hit Israel, put Washington on the defensive and prove it still has deterrent power despite the U.S.-Israeli air campaign.
• According to the Journal, Tehran is betting that its strikes — and Trump’s desire to keep a deal alive — will push Netanyahu to scale back his offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
• Tehran said Monday it had stopped its attacks, but warned they could resume and widen if Israel continued striking, including in southern Lebanon.
• Israel also ended its strikes on Iran, but kept its operations against Hezbollah open, according to a person familiar with the matter cited by the Journal.
What to watch
The equation is no longer just Israel versus Iran.
It is now a test of three limits: the limit of U.S. power against Iran, the limit of Trump’s control over Netanyahu, and the limit of Tehran’s ability to raise the cost without triggering a wider war.
If Trump forces a deal, he will say he ended the war on American terms. If the deal is weak — or if Hormuz remains an Iranian pressure lever — Tehran will have turned the war into a harsh demonstration of the limits of American power.
